September Achievement Unlocked

Main Quest Line

Happy Birthday Andrew!

My husband turned 32 in September. I made him a spice cake with vanilla frosting, his favorite, from scratch, but completely botched the decorations. My bad! He’s decided since we moved to Houston that he is a Texans fan and as a diehard Redskins fan I’m super offended. But I was willing to put that offense to the side for his birthday and make him a Texans themed cake. After a series of unfortunate and unforeseen events – mostly due to my genius idea to make my own custom cake stencil while knowing nothing about cake stencils – he was left with a hot mess of a cake. I will say that it tasted wonderfully, and that’s really all that matters about cake. Afterwards we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch NCAA football and eat deliciously deep fried foods. We were going to catch a movie afterwards but I wanted to see The Woods (now it’s being called Blair Witch?) and he wanted to see literally anything else but honestly we weren’t terribly excited about anything that was playing so we just went home and went to bed. Woo, watch out for these party animals.

School Picture Day

Picture day is getting to be so much fun now that the kids like to pick out their own clothes. Claire went for this adorable tulle dress we got from Hanna Andersson and Logan agreed to wear his pink and blue plaid oxford to match it. I was a little disappointed to discover that there aren’t any background choices for fall pictures, just a plain gray, but I know spring pictures have a lot more options so I’ll just accept it. I can’t wait to get their photos back, they both looked so darn good!

Side Quests

‘Tis the Season for Pumpkin Spice!

September is the official start of pumpkin spice season, which is basically a three month national holiday in my book. I celebrate by imbibing copious amounts of pumpkin spice, all of which is either caffeinated, alcoholic, or in pie form. It’s the only way.

Shopping with Julia

Shopping with Julia is often an adventure. By adventure I mean I’m carrying a screaming toddler over my shoulder and not that I’ve joined a band of dwarfs to steal a mountain back from a dragon. Maybe it’s just because it’s been longer since Claire’s younger days, but I don’t remember her being quite so difficult. Julia is definitely a lot more like Logan. Claire had typical toddler stubbornness but she enjoyed being helpful and would often follow an adult’s lead. Logan’s defiance was less actual defiance and more to do with his autism. While I don’t think Julia has autism she does have similar speech and language delays to Logan and she definitely has an agenda of her own. Sometimes that agenda means we get to have donuts to celebrate a successful – read: no one broke down in tears, not even me – shopping trip. Next month she has another evaluation with a speech language pathologist and other therapists and educators to evaluate her cognitive function, finalize her apraxia diagnosis, and yes, evaluate her for autism. Hopefully before the end of the year she’ll start speech therapy and if needed other services, but in the meantime I’ll enjoy all of this time we have together to hang out at the grocery store and stuff our faces.

Home Depot Fun!

In September my sister and I took the big kids to one of Home Depot’s free workshops for kids. You get an apron and pin and you can build and take home the project of the month. In September it was a back-to-school whiteboard. Very cool! Claire had a lot of fun with the hammer and Logan knew it was all very serious business.

Home Depot is actually super awesome and offers all different kinds of free workshops. There are workshops for kids, for women, and even just DIYers or for first time homeowners wanting to learn the tricks of the trade. Did you know you can also have a birthday party at some Home Depots? Not all of them offer them, but those that do are usually free. The one by our house uses the space they use for the kids’ workshops and they provide aprons, DIY kits, balloons, and help. All you have to bring is the cake, food, and goodie bags. So much awesome! If Logan wasn’t so dead set on his party being at Johnson Space Center this year I would totally have a fun construction themed party. I think we’ll do that for Julia’s birthday in July, she loves making messes and banging stuff.

How was your September?

September was a nice quiet month while we all got back into the groove of the school year and sports. I started to juggle my roles on the PTA executive board, the Special Education PTA, and Logan’s special education class room mom position. How did your September go? Anything new or exciting?